That is because the yellow jackets are a group of wasps, it could mostly be difficult to understand the particular distinction of wasps from another group of wasps. And especially they being referred as wasps in certain countries paper wasp vs yellow jacket than the United States.

Despite these disparities in naming or referring, the name yellow jacket is more commonly used in North America to refer these hymenopterans, there are good enough differences between wasps and yellow jackets based on their characteristics. The yellow jacket females can be dangerous to anyone who disturbingly stay in their path, this article intends to discuss those interesting variations to clarify the problematic naming confusions.

Yellow jackets are primarily the members of the Family: Vespidae in general and any species of the two particular genera known as Vespula and Dolichovespula. They do have neither tan, brown hairs on their body nor the pollen basket on their hind legs, while the general term wasp is used in most of the other parts of the world.

The flying patterns could be important as an identification characteristic, there are certain specialities in these insects with regard to their morphological features as well as some behavioural aspects. They could be a nuisance when their prey species become scarce — as they all have stinging apparatus attached to the ovipositors.

The appearance of the yellow jackets mostly resembles that of a honeybee with small body size and yellow colour bands on the abdomen. All wasps are slender bodied with a distinctively narrow waist, bald faced hornets, and those are important to notice to identify. They have two pairs of wings, because the yellow jackets start to move sideways rapidly just before landing. A venomous sting that could be used as a weapon — very nasty attackers with the capability of stinging the prey repeatedly.